Cancer Research (International Conference, Paris, 1910) : copy of report of E.F. Bashford ... delegate of His Majesty's Government to the Second International Conference on Cancer Research held at Paris from the 1st to the 5th October, 1910 / presented to Parliament by command of His Majesty.

  • Bashford, Ernest Francis, 1873-
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Cancer Research (International Conference, Paris, 1910) : copy of report of E.F. Bashford ... delegate of His Majesty's Government to the Second International Conference on Cancer Research held at Paris from the 1st to the 5th October, 1910 / presented to Parliament by command of His Majesty. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    4/8 (page 4)
    (3) An account of the duration of cancer of the digestive tract brought out how frequently the first symptoms appeared, and the diagnoses were made, subsequent to a prolonged latent period which was neglected, because of the absence of any evidence of its existence. Subsequent papers, dealing with clinical diagnosis and the chemistry of cancer, left the impres- sion that diagnosis by means of changes in the blood was not to be relied upon, and could not replace the older methods, even with all their shortcomings, which are due to the absence of a specific symptomatology of cancer. Several speakers expounded their views as to what might be done to enlighten the public in order that cancer might be diagnosed earlier, and thereby made more amenable to surgical treatment. Emphasis was also laid upon the fact that the education of the medical profession is just as essential in this respect. (4) There were some very able papers on surgical treatment. They were followed by important discussions turning mainly upon the value of adjuvants to surgical treatment, such as fulguration, X rays, radium, &c. The consensus of opinion was against the employment of fulguration. The therapeutic employment of radium was fully discussed without any definite conclusion being arrived at; none of the speakers claimed that its use had superseded surgical treatment, nor was its use recommended without previous resort to surgery, in other than small superficial lesions. The general impression conveyed by the discussion was that treatment by sera and vaccines was not to be relied upon, and that, although many speakers had employed radium, the quantities had been far too small to enable them to pass a final judgment upon its value in the treatment of cancer. (5) In the fifth section the proceedings were opened by a lucid and impartial account of the resistance which can be induced to the implantation and progressive growth of cancer in animals. Pessimistic interpretations of the phenomena in question were eschewed and optimistic views advanced. The phenomena discussed were interpreted to mean that fresh animals reacted against the implantation of cancer, and set up an active resistance to its growth in them. One speaker claimed that the evidence he advanced favoured the view that the serum of animals which had been rendered resistant to cancer, by artificial means, possesses curative properties analogous to those possessed by the anti-diphtheritic serum. Another speaker described the disappearance, or reduction in size, of true malignant new growths in man after repeatedly inoculating healthy human tissues ; in other words, he claimed that certain of the means which have been satisfactorily demonstrated to prevent the implantation of cancer from one animal to another, and to hinder its growth when so transferred, were also efficacious to cure cancer in man.